Saturday, May 23, 2015

I noticed a curious-looking yellow "bean" hanging from the upper hood of this little calypso orchid. Shannon, the Botany Queen, confirmed that this is a sneaky way for orchids to stick pollen onto the backs of bees. The orchid's stigma (pollen receptor) is a little farther in. Pollen from another orchid is transferred to the stigma when the bee crawls in, and fresh pollen sticks to the bee as it crawls back out. As Shannon says, "Wa-la. Pollination."